Young Men's Club - 5/30/08 Season Finale

So today was my last day of teaching. I leave for Baltimore next week. It was a very bitter-sweet day. It was also pretty easy. Mainly due to the fact that, because it was my last day, I found it very difficult to be as strict as I normally am. Don't get me wrong. The rules were still enforced. I just didn't stress out about it. The day started with an incident that, oddly enough, didn't even involve my club. There were three girls in another club that were running around. I told them to stop. They stopped briefly and then started up again. They were having some bizarre disagreement. I think the strangest thing of all is that they were looking for adult intervention and I was the only one around. They finally just walked over to me and told me their story. And it was a long one. I gave each one of them the opportunity to talk. Then, like Solomon, I rendered judgement. Basically, they were all guilty of something and they all owed each other apologies. And that was the end of that. Funny how that worked out. They just wanted to be heard. The boys were a little rambunctious today. Nothing out of control, but definitely more energy than usual. Partly because of normal Friday energy and partly because today was their last chance to test me. Now the other reason why today was made easier was because the other after school program was giving a presentation. So I only had to entertain the kids for about 40 minutes. I took them outside and we ran the drumming pieces and recitals for the Spring show. After about 3 runs of each, I gave them about 20 minutes of free time. I personally found it very strange that one of them chose that time to play with his Nintendo DS. On top of that, most of the other kids chose to watch him play it. Basically, they chose video games over exercise. The presentation was not so great, but it killed time. At the end of the day, my supervisor made a nice little speech in front of everyone thanking me for the job that I had done over the course of the school year. I made an effort to give a special unique send off message to each of the boys. I shook each one's hand and told them all I was very proud. There were definitely a couple of long faces. I guess that the whole thing hasn't really hit me yet. It just seems so weird that I won't be going back there for the rest of the school year. I guess I've been going for so long that it felt like just another Friday. Or maybe I'm just in denial. I did try to soften the blow by assuring everyone that I'd be back in the Fall. I can't honestly say if that's true or not, but if nothing pops up on the career front, I would definitely go back there. It's a very good school and they are good kids. (For the most part) They drove me crazy at times and at other times they made me very proud. I hoped they learned a lot from me and I've definitely learned a lot from them. I do regret that I wasn't able to stick with them until the very end. But I am confident that they are going to do great. And so will I.

Until next Fall.

Young Men's Club - 5/29/08

Today was the penultimate day. I didn't have to make an announcement that I was leaving. News travels fast in an elementary school. The boys seemed to take the news well. There is already speculation as to who will take over the club. I honestly have no idea. I also, however, would be rather interested to know. Perhaps have the new person observe my club. I have no control over that. Anyway, another gorgeous day which meant another day outside. It was also spent mostly drumming. But this time I really tried to focus on proper technique. But I could only get so far. Most of them are only interested in hitting the buckets as hard as they possibly can. But a couple of them are actually pretty good. And I guess that's more than I can ask for. Next we worked on the drumming pieces for the show. Unfortunately, the quality of the performance seemed to have dropped. One of them, Jeremiah, always had some problems with tempo. Basically, he has absolutely no rhythm. Also, his mission seems to be to hit the drums as hard and as fast as possible. Which throws everyone off. But today, it really seemed like everyone was trying to play faster and faster. Basically, no one was listening to each other. I chose to chalk that up to the fact that it was getting late and it was a really nice day out. Both of which must have made it difficult to focus. In the end, I'm realizing that I have to just let it go. They will perform however they will perform. It will be good. It won't be great. Parents will be proud. Life will go on.

Drama Club - 5/28/08

Today was my last day of teaching Drama Club. It was all very strange. First of all, my announcement to the kids didn't go as I had planned. My replacement came in to observe my class. I chose to wait until the last possible moment to tell the kids that I was leaving. I thought that would make it an easier transition. I also didn't want to undermine my own authority. However, during snack time, my supervisor made the brilliant decision to introduce my replacement to the school nurse as MY REPLACEMENT. IN FRONT OF THE KIDS. He's a nice guy and all but give me a break. Why wasn't he thinking?! He soon corrected himself saying, "I shouldn't say that in front of the kids?" ( YOU THINK?! ) So there I was dealing with a bunch of jaw-dropped kids wondering if this news was true. I deflected the question until club officially started. It was a gorgeous day so we most definitely went outside. I broke the news to them there. I explained that, as they knew, I am a professional actor and that I had been offered a role in a Shakespeare play in Baltimore and that it starts next week. I also let them know that I had planned to return in the Fall. There were some groans of disapproval. There were many questions. There was a very brief sense that I wasn't in charge anymore. (I quickly put an end to that) There was a lot of jockeying for position to buddy up with the new teacher. I have to admit that I felt a little jealous about that. Oh how quickly their loyalties turn. We moved on to a classic beanbag game using the Hamlet speech. Then we went on to rehearse the show. Once again it was a 15 minute process that took about 35 minutes. We also played this cute little game to help the new teacher learn the kids' names. Each kid would say their name and then make a physical gesture. Then everyone had to repeat it. That was actually kind of fun. After that was done, the kids had about 15 minutes to play. After I brought them back, I gave the kids lollipops to help ease the pain of my departure. Just when my heart couldn't break anymore, as I was leaving the school, little Ashlee gave me a hug goodbye. I reassured her that I would be back in the Fall. Which, of course, would be a total lie if I make it big. Yes, I realize that you see through my jaded facade.

Young Men's Club - 5/22/08

Today's club was pretty much a piece of cake. That, of course, was due to the new policy of sending the poorly behaved kids out of the room. It just makes my life so much easier. The "Three Amigos" are no longer my concern. They get a very short leash. Nasir was the first to go. It seemed like he was trying at the beginning but he just couldn't keep it together. Basically, he's addicted to class-clownery. Next was Jourdan. It wasn't that he was doing anything major to piss me off. He just kept doing a bunch of little things over and over again. He'd start a little side conversation then back off; Give a little push to a kid and then back off; Finally, when he started making gross nasal noises, I had had enough. Did the punishment fit the crime? Who knows. I don't really care at this point. I am so tired of all of these clubs being about trying to keep him in line. Last was Christian. He was actually hanging in there for awhile. But in the end, he too could not control himself. It was a couple of little things to start. Then, when I was trying to speak, he began to openly play the drums. And that was that. I honestly don't know why these kids have to keep testing me every single day. What signals am I giving that says that I won't punish them if they misbehave? Oh well, if they want to learn the hard way, that's their problem.

Drama Club - 5/21/08

I'm in the home stretch. There's is only one week left before the school year ends for me. I spent today working on the final scene for the Spring show. It's a very simple little piece. They march in from opposite ends of the stage, shake hands with the other "team" and then one student gives a quick little speech that's at the end of the play. Despite the same deal that I always make with them, this still was a long process. I told them that if we got through it quickly, then we could play games for the rest of the time. Oh well. Also, the new policy change has made my life significantly easier. My site coordinator has given the green light on sending kids out of the class that aren't able to behave. So my typical problem kids are taken out of the room completely. I, of course, want to use it sparingly, but I'm more than willing to use it. Then there's this student Javelina. The good thing about her is that she actually has shown an inkling of interest in Drama. The bad news is that she's a diva. So on the one hand, I want her to be involved. On the other hand, she's very very difficult to work with. But I've found a solution. Whenever she starts becoming more and more of a diva, I simply ask this question of everyone in the room, "Would anyone else like to read this speech?" Of course, everyone raises their hands and she quickly realizes that she is not above reproach. Which I think is the best life lesson of all.

Young Men's Club - 5/13/08

I am counting down the days until I move on to my acting gig. But until then, there's a lot of work to do. The good news with the boys is that their work is pretty much done. There will be no new material that they'll have to learn. It's simply a matter of rehearsing what they already know. Which should have been simple. In fact, I made an announcement to them at the beginning of the club. I said that we would run the pieces for both the Spring and the Father/Son shows three times. After that, there would be free time to do whatever they wanted. Play games, go outside, whatever. All they had to do was get it together for about a half an hour. Well it didn't work out that way. They were so easily distracted. But the good news for me was that it didn't really matter. I knew that we were going to do what I wanted. It didn't matter if it took an hour. I repeatedly reminded them that they were cutting into their own play time. The unfortunate aspect of this policy is that the kids that do behave must pay the penalty of the three kids that don't know how to act. But they did get their comeuppance. When there was time to play, the rebellious kids had the distinct pleasure of sitting out.

Young Men's Club - 5/8/08

Today, I was somewhat of a rough day. It turns out that I will be leaving the school earlier than my commitment. So as a result, I've got a lot of loose ends to tie up. One of which is teaching the boys their lines for the Spring Show. Now here's the thing, as a professional actor, I understand that sitting down and learning lines is not fun. So you can imagine how it may feel for a group of 9 year-olds. But I just had to press on. I also went with a new tactic for trying to control their behavior. Rather than threaten them with what I would do specifically (whether it was a time out, a written notice, or telling their parent), I would instead give them a rather general threat. So if one kid would misbehave, I would smile and say, "Good. Keep doing that. Because it will help me remember how you've behaved today. And I've got something special planned for you." It was a pretty much a bluff. It's not like I'm going to do anything different than what I've already done. But the vagueness seems to work better. It allows their imaginations to kick in. Psychological warfare is the best. Also, I gave many many speeches about how actions speak louder than words. If they learn nothing else from me, it will be that.

Drama Club - 5/7/08

Today was a gorgeous day and I was determined to have club outside today. I saw a wonderful sight before club started. It was Jourdan's mother who had come to pick him up early. I did a nice little mental cartwheel. I knew then that I would at least have a chance to get some work done during the club today with him out of the picture. I swear that kid is just so disruptive. I announced to the kids that we were going outside to work. After the collective groan, I told them that they had a choice of working inside or outside. They chose outside. Honestly, I endured through the same shenanigans that I would have gone through inside. It just seemed a lot easier to deal with because I was outside. I also knew that any extra time I had at the end could be spent just letting the kids run around. So we did our standard warm up and then went right into the speeches. They know the words of the first speech so it was just a matter of the performance. I kept telling them to keep their energy up. I realized that one really cool saying that would help them do that was, "Play to Win." So I would say that periodically and that would spur them on. I also had to remind them to stop the fidgeting and the talking when it wasn't their line. Although I don't think they'll do that when they get on stage. We then moved on to Juliet's speech. I decided to break them up into two teams and split the lines up. With time running out, it's best to give them as few new lines to learn as possible. One team learned their lines rather quickly. The other team had focus issues. So, let the former team have free play time while the latter continued to work on the lines. After a few minutes of free play, I reigned everyone in and had them do it a couple more times just to keep it fresh in their minds. Why can't everyday be 70 degrees?

Young Men's Club - 5/6/08

I was informed today that the Young Men's Club will be performing at the annual Father/Son brunch in June. I was also told that there would be a visitor during the club. The head grant-writer or something. Couple that with the Spring show and the fact that I'm going to be leaving very soon and I ended up with a long list of things to do and a very short time to do them. The good news was that for the Father/Son show, they will do the same thing that they did for the Black History Show. The bad news was that I had to find out if they remembered it. Well it turned out, for the most part, that they did. The drumming piece was a little rusty to start, but they ended up back on track. The same was true with the, "I have a dream," speech. One major problem that I had with the drumming section was that my buckets have yet to be replaced, so I was short about 3 or 4 buckets. Which meant that everyone couldn't drum at the same time. However, it also meant that if anyone misbehaved, then I could replace them with someone who didn't have a bucket. It was quite the power trip. For the most part, the boys did fairly well today. I did, however, have to put them in a time out and I had to repeated give this speech: "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is when you listen to me, we finish what we need to get done, and we have plenty of time left over to play games. The hard way is when you continue to interrupt me and continue to be distracted and I have to take time to address all of these issues. Either way, we're going to get it done." Lastly, the visit by the grant-writer was a non-factor. I didn't even notice when he/she came in. I ended the day with a very quick race. I had the best behaved child pick who they wanted to race against and then so on down the line.

Drama Club - 5/5/08

I think "Ugh" would be the best way to describe today's club. As always, I started in a good mood. It was a gorgeous day outside. My plan was to run the entire club outside. No tricks. No incentives. Just go right outside. I guess the only catch would have been that we would have done work but I still think that would have been a pretty good deal. Well it didn't work out that way. It started during snack time. One of the worst things that can happen during snack time is the spilling of a drink. Which, of course, happens all the time. The reason that this is such a catastrophe is because no one will actually admit that they spilled the drink. And they definitely don't rush to clean it up anytime soon. Being the responsible adult, I can't allow the group to leave without the mess being cleaned up. So I end up in a standoff with the kids about whose going to clean it up, and everybody saying that they didn't do it. That entire process took about 15 to 20 minutes. Just wasted time that we could have gone outside. And when they did eventually decide to clean it up, complete chaos broke out as every single kid decided that they wanted to be the one who would get towels to clean up the spill. So it went from no one wanting to handle it to everyone. As a result, I revoked the outside privileges. At least temporarily. We went to the auditorium and worked on the speech for the show. I worked on it with them as a group. I continued to used my trusty beanbag technique. I had them move the beanbag around in a circle as quickly as possible. It went fairly well. Unfortunately, you can't engage everyone all the time. There's always 2 or 3 or 4 kids that check out. So I had to keep reigning them in. But most of them managed to learn the first line. I decided to take them outside. But first we had to make bathroom trips. Well that process ended up taking about 15 minutes or so. Since that had taken so long, I had to cancel the trip outside. Needless to say, they weren't happy about that. And yet, for some reason, couldn't see how they were somehow partly responsible for that. Children can be so childish.

Young Men's Club -5/2/08

Today was a great day. That's because I had to do very little work. It turned out that one of the other after school programs was giving a performance in the auditorium. That meant that I only had to plan activities for about 20 minutes for before the show and about 20 minutes for after. Which is especially great because Fridays are so long. Also, my buckets still had not been returned at this point. I'm really getting sick of the whole damn thing at this point. Anyway, I simply started with the same game that I always play with the bean bag. The difference was that the kids had to through it back to me. This was to avoid a big free-for-all that usually happens as well as keep the game moving. When I took them to the auditorium for the show, I made absolutely sure that they were all completely separated. There were at least 6 or 7 chairs between each kid. That worked out brilliantly. Naturally, there was always one asshole and he got the distinct pleasure of sitting right next to me. Periodically, some kids would try to sneak over to near their buddies. That's why I took a perfect position in the back row in order to see all and bring the hammer down as need be. I'd make an excellent cop. After the show it was a few rounds of Duck, Duck, Goose and then I peaced them the fuck out.

Young Men's Club - 5/1/08

On this day, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. Maybe I was going to do a little bit of drumming and maybe a little bit of work on the speech. Unfortunately, the custodial staff who had been so kind in providing my club with buckets, promptly took about half of them for some reason. And at this point, it's impossible to have half the kids drumming. This is like the second or third time they've pulled this shit. They need to look up the word "gift." Anyway, by default, today became about working on the speeches. Despite the debacle of the previous day's experiment, I decided to try it again. I had the boys who were in the Drama club, teach the other boys the new lines. The difference was that I limited it to pairs hoping to avoid any major conflicts. In general, it worked out fairly well. Understandably, you ask kids to work privately and they turn it into an opportunity to screw around. I tried to pair kids who weren't close friends and yet they still managed to work it out, team up, and play instead of work. What I ended up doing was constantly calling each team over and telling them to perform the speech for me. When it was clear that they hadn't worked on it, I would make them run lines a few times and then tell them to go back and run those lines 10 times. I would stress the importance of repetition. After about a half-hour or so, I gathered all the kids in a circle and played a game with them based on how well they knew the speech. The old "toss the beanbag while reciting one word at a time game." This time, they had to be in the air when they had the beanbag. It was a pretty good idea accept that the boys who weren't playing at that exact moment would act like assholes. It's so annoying. Those boys would be punished by a loss of turn. Finally, I announced that the winning teams would be given prizes on the next day.

Drama Club - 4/30/08

I've been totally slacking with my blogs. So I'm just going to crank these out as best I can. On Wednesday's Drama Club, I recall that I was having a little bit of difficulty. Mainly because I wanted to try something new. The reason I wanted to try something new was because I was feeling a little bit lazy. But I also wanted to see what the kids were capable of. I had them break up into groups and learn a few lines of Juliet's speech on their own. I wanted to see if they could work together and do my job for me. I monitored the situation closely. I split them up between the boys and girls because you can't mix genders in that situation. Way too much tension. Also, the boys are learning a different speech. I'll start with the boys. They actually did rather well but that was because they had learned a large part of it in the Young Men's Club. Only one of them, Jourdan, was being a complete and total asshole about the whole thing. Seriously, the kid is an asshole. Everyone else was actually making an attempt to learn and he was doing everything he could to be a distraction. This included dancing, going over to the girls side, and sitting out and pouting. On the girl's side, that was just a mess. Basically, the whole thing consisted of one long power struggle. They simply could not work together for 5 minutes. One girl, Javelina, was so upset because everyone wouldn't just do whatever she said. They all had the nerve to have their own ideas. I hate to sound sexist, but the whole thing was really catty. And at such a young age. It ended with me giving up on this idea and going into a group rehearsal. This was then completely derailed because of a huge cockroach/waterbug. Everyone freaked out. Clearly my years of experience in Drama could not compete with the appearance of a large insect.

Young Men's Club - 4/29/08

Today was actually a pretty decent day. I've pretty much accepted the fact that things are just going to take time with these kids. It's going to take time for them to settle down. That's not going to change. With that said, it took a good 10 minutes for the boys to calm down. Which is actually less than how long it takes the girls to settle down. I started with some basic drumming warm ups. I figured that the kids had a lot of time off and they needed to practice their technique. The few that were still having trouble listening were placed in a little mini-timeout. Basically, they had to sit there while others got to play. After the warm up, I had them play the drumming piece. It sounded very good. However, there were still a couple of kids that don't quite have it yet. So I broke them up into groups and had them work on it. I told them that the group that was the most cohesive would win a prize. One team was excellent. The second team was pretty good. The third team was god-awful. So after that, I had all of them do the drumming piece one more time. Then I took the kids who were still having a hard time aside and tried to work with them on a more personal level. I had the other kids play tag. Here's the problem: The kids that needed work on their drumming didn't understand that they needed work. They thought they were being punished. (Although a couple of them were) One of them was just pouting throughout the whole thing. Meanwhile, the kids who were playing tag couldn't seem to manage it without somebody falling a crying. So I ended that game and replaced it with the Romeo speech. That, unfortunately, was difficult as well. It as about this time that I was completely fed up with all of them. I told them to gather their belongings and line up. About 5 minutes early. I didn't really care at that point. So club didn't end well today. But the beginning and middle were pretty good. So I got that going for me.

Drama Club - 4/28/08

Today was the first day back after a nice, week-long vacation. I have to say that I was not looking forward to returning. It's not even a matter of the kids. It's just that working, in general, pretty much sucks. Let's face it. If I had a choice between working and not working, I would take the latter. The other news was that I agreed to take an acting gig for the Summer which means that I will be leaving the clubs a little earlier that I had originally planned. So there was a sense of calm as I entered the club today. It started off very nicely. I was in good spirits. I joked with the kids. I learned to laugh at their little idiosyncrasies. It was quite liberating. Then I had them learn a new speech for the Spring show. The best way for them to do this is in the form of a game. They toss around a beanbag while saying one word at a time. If they drop the beanbag or miss a word, then they lose a turn. They actually like this game and I think that we'll just do this everyday until the end. After a few rounds of this, we started rehearsing the scene. This is always a problem. The way that I have it staged is that half the kids will enter from one side and the other half enters from the other. Since I can't be in two places at once, it means complete lawlessness for the side I'm not watching at that moment. Let's just say, after a few minutes, I couldn't just laugh it off. But we managed to get through it. Again, it's going to be a really scene. They just have to commit to it. Hopefully they will.

Young Men's Club - 4/16/08

Today was yet another gorgeous day. I also am very close to the Spring recess. So I was absolutely taking the kids outside. But as always, I have to have a catch. I required that they recite the speech from Romeo and Juliet and that they perform their drumming piece a couple of times. And yet, they managed to somehow to make that a difficult process. So, I admit, I lost my cool for a moment. I had to let them have it. That managed to settle them down and they actually did a really good job. All it takes is a little bit of focus. I wish they could understand that. Anyway, I took them outside which was good for a majority of the kids but no so much for two of them. Since Nasir has been spending so much time clowning around that he's been woefully behind in his drumming skills. Christian, on the other hand, has been pretty good. The problem with him was his lack of focus and his inexorable desire to get on my nerves. As a result, when everyone else went outside to play, I gave private drumming lessons to Nasir and Christian. Which, of course, they loved. I mean it's not like they wanted to run around and play football. But it was, in fact, something that they desperately needed and not just me being sadistic. It really did help them improve their drumming skills. Finally, with about 10 minutes left in club time, I released them into the wild for some running around time. One more day until vacation.

Drama Club - 4/16/08

The Spring recess starts in a few days and it can't come too soon for me. It was also an incredibly gorgeous day outside. And maybe I shouldn't be admitting this in public, but I'm pretty much phoning it in for the rest of the week. After the debacle on Monday, I have no desire to put in a ton of effort. I just want to get to my vacation. But I'm not completely lazy. I made a deal with the kids. I told them if they ran the scene 3 times really well, then we could go outside. It still took them a fairly long time to get it together. And I was being very lenient because I too was interested in going outside. And yet, they still had problems getting it together. One girl, Britney, has so much attitude. As a result, I put her on a ten minute time out. I also didn't enforce that time out until we went outside. I hit you where it hurts. That's how I roll. The other cool thing was that my Site Coordinator came in and had a look at the scene. He loved it. So that made me feel a lot better about my decision to be lazy and take the kids outside. I also think that it was what both I and the kids needed. Despite all of the craziness, I understand that the kids have been working very hard and they deserved a break. Once we went outside, I was able to relax tremendously. I was able to get a couple of double-dutch jump ropes from the school. It turns out that double-dutch jumping is really hard. I threw the football with a couple of the other kids, threw a Frisbee with some others, and showed off some of my basketball moves with some others. Basically they all learned that I can do anything. Except double-dutch. Either way, I was their hero.

Drama Club - 4/14/08

There are good days and bad days. Today was definitely a bad day. It started out promising enough. I felt like I was in a pretty good mood. I found a new game to play with the kids. I also felt that since they've been doing such good job with the speech that I would spend most of the club playing games. Unfortunately, they hated the game that I chose and tuned out of it immediately. And once I lost them in the beginning, that was it. I also didn't have much of a backup plan because I thought they would love this game. So then I went to rehearsing the scene again and added some new blocking. That, unfortunately, didn't go so well either. They had to go back stage in order to make their entrances. They took that as permission to act as if they were in, "The Lord of the Flies." So after a few rounds of time outs and yelling, I finally just gave up on them. I just couldn't take it anymore. I told them all to just have a seat and do their homework if they wanted to. I was just so sick of the whole thing. On top of that, there was only one kid that actually showed some semblance of good behavior. She's also one of two kids that has actually shown some interest in drama. In the show, there's going to be one separate speaking role. It was in this moment that I chose to give it to the one girl who was behaving. Unfortunately, the other girl took it very hard. She was so devastated that she started crying profusely. I told her that I would find another role for her to play. So basically, I am the worst teacher in the world.

Young Men's Club - 4/11/08

Friday is always such a long day and today was especially long. It started out promising enough. My good friend Nasir was not in the club today. So I figured that it would be smooth sailing. Unfortunately, a couple of the kids decided that they needed to take up the slack that his absence had created. So I had to "process" the concept about distractions for quite some time. Also, I don't really have a space to work in on Fridays. I have to take the boys to the lobby just outside of the auditorium. Normally, there isn't a problem, but today the club that was in the auditorium was videotaping some bullshit interview. Which meant that I could not have the boys drumming in the lobby. Okay, I can be accommodating. It also turned out that the Dance club was on a field trip so the cafeteria was free. So I took the boys there and started drumming. However, it turned out that THAT was a problem because the people in the auditorium could still hear it. So I had to cut out the drumming entirely. I had them run the speech a few times but I still ended up a good 20 minutes short. I didn't really want them playing a game that involved them running in the cafeteria because it's just not set up for that. There were tables everywhere that had to be moved and there were just too many potential hazards. So I decided to just let the kids sit down and entertain themselves. I just didn't have the energy to try and concoct a whole new game plan because of someone else's nonsense. They really make me work for it on Fridays.

Young Men's Club - 4/10/08

Today I continued my attempts to be a kinder and gentler teaching artist. My day started with a staff meeting in the morning. I usually enjoy those because I get to commiserate with fellow teaching artists about the trials and tribulations of after school students. It reassures me that I'm not alone in this wacky world. Also, it reminded me that I have to use "processing" more. This is a technique used by the company that I work for that allows for dialogue with the students about the various experiences during the club. So for instance, if two kids get into an argument, I would "process" that by starting and continuing a dialogue on the issue using open-ended questions. Needless to say it is very difficult and the kids hate it. The last thing they want to do is talk. However, I do feel it is important and I try to take time with it whenever I can. Today, I made more of an effort. Strangely enough, it was pretty helpful in many ways. At the very least for me because I ended up processing some things for myself. In one case, the kids were having a really hard time listening. So I posed the question, "Who likes drumming?" They all raised their hands. I then proceeded to ask them what they needed to do in order to become skilled drummers. I really stuck with the "processing" and they seemed to have a glimmer of understanding about the importance of listening and hard work in order to acquire skill. They really make you work in this job. I'm constantly having to adapt to what the kids are doing and feeling. I'm constantly trying to use different techniques in order to get them to pay attention. I try and mix it up with incentives and punishments. I just have to keep in mind that the whole endeavor is a very slow process. I think the one thing that keeps me sane is that we do have a group goal. There is a Spring show at the end of the year and they will all participate. It provides that main path that we can get back to when they inevitably veer off of it.

Young Men's Club - 4/8/08

Maybe it was because I was just so incredibly tired today. Maybe it's because I've gained enough experience in my job to finally have the ability to just let it all go. Whatever the reason, I was able to have a fairly decent and productive day today. I constantly tell the boys that their actions will always have consequences. I also told them that if there was time left at the end of the day that they could play whatever game they wanted. I also knew that because they were incapable of settling down and listening while we accomplished what I had planned, there was absolutely no way that they would get that game time. I was willing to be wrong. Needless to say, I wasn't. So whenever they would interrupt me when I was talking, I would simply say, "I'll wait." Then they realized that it was cutting into their time, yell at each other to be quiet, and then eventually settle down. Whenever they would argue back and forth about some nonsense, I simply took a seat and non-verbally expressed that nothing was going to happen until all arguments had been resolved. And while they made a very strong effort to try and earn that free time, it just wasn't in the cards today. They were all so disappointed. I think a tiny part of my soul shed a little tear. HA! HA, I say! One day, they'll all figure it out. Cause and Effect. It's pretty simple if you ask me. Until then, it's all work and no play. But I'm definitely not going to allow myself to stress out about it anymore. The rules are in place and I think they're fair. If they don't want to follow them, that's their problem. I knew that I was going to achieve my agenda in terms of rehearsing for the show. And that's all that really matters. That I get what I want.

Drama Club 4/7/08

I really hate to admit this because I hate working in general and if I admit to actually liking some aspect about my job, then the entire structure of hatred will collapse. However, I'm rather excited about the potential that my Drama Club has. Right now, we are working on the opening speech from Romeo and Juliet. Every time we rehearse it (about 20 minutes per club) it's like pulling teeth. I have to drag them, kicking and screaming to work on this thing. But the sad part is, they know it very well and they've picked it up really quickly so there should be no reason why they should resent it. Other than for the same reasons that I resent going into work. Because it's work. They don't call it fun. That's why they have to pay me to go in there and do that crap. Anyway, when the Spring show goes up in a couple of months, the kids will look very impressive. I will end on that positive note.

Young Men's Club - 4/3/08

I'm seriously considering changing the name of this blog to, "Why is Nasir such a huge pain in the ass?" I mean he is completely incapable of turning it off. Not even for one second. He literally waits for me to turn around so that he can pull something. A little dance; Throwing a piece of paper in the air; Whatever. So today he had to sit out. I just couldn't take it anymore. Other than that, the day went fairly smoothly. There were a couple of the kids that were out on Tuesday so I had to catch them up on the new introduction section of the drumming piece. Then I taught all the kids a new section to the drum piece at the end. While they managed to learn how to play the new part, they had a lot of difficulty incorporating the new part with the old part. But again, we've got plenty of time so it should be really good when it's all said and done. Also, it must be that time of year or something because the boys started having meltdowns at around 4:15. Suddenly, everyone just had to have water. Again, I don't want to sound insensitive but it simply isn't feasible to let everyone just go and get water. Actually, it's a lot easier in the gym because the water fountain is just outside the room. But when I'm in the auditorium it's practically impossible. The kids just can't be trusted to go, get water, and come back. I'll figure something out. Right now, I'm just powering through it and trying to get to that home stretch. Lastly, I've instituted one more attempt to control the minds and behaviors of the kids. I'm keeping track of how many times each kid gets selected as "line leader." Line leaders are chosen based on how well they behave. At the end of the month, a prize will be awarded to the kid with the most line leader points. I reward and punish. Giveth and taketh away. It's all very delicate.

Drama Club - 4/2/08

Today went so smoothly that I could almost go so far to say that it was boring. Even routine. Okay that's not exactly true. There were a couple of issues here and there. It took a little while to get started. It's always difficult to get them to settle down. So I like to wait for them to quiet down before I take them into the room. The whole process usually takes about 5-10 minutes. Once we got in and did the usual opening warm-up, I had the kids play a very simple game that I've had them play before. They toss around a beanbag while reciting Hamlet's famous speech. Each participant says one word at a time. I broke them up into teams in order to provide some competition. That seemed to go well. There were about 15 kids in the club today and about 4 of them were not into the game at all. That's the really difficult part about a large group. I can't engage everyone all the time. I simply chose to just let me hang loose. Then I had them rehearse the Romeo and Juliet scene. It started out very well. The kids are getting more and more comfortable with it. But then, the mutiny occurred around 4:15 or so. All of a sudden, every kid felt that they just had to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. That is such bullshit. In case I haven't made it clear, I don't work in the middle of the Sahara. It's a school. I also only have them for about an hour and a half. So they can freaking handle the extra 10 minutes it would have taken to finish what we were doing before we left for the day. So the club ended with me getting very angry and putting the group in a big time out. Plus there will be another 10 minute time out added on next Monday's club. And of course, the time out contained one of my classic lectures. After the club, this one girl, Jamir, whose a little odd, asked me if she was good today. Now I'm no fool. The reason that she asked this question was because sometimes, when kids behave, I give them lollipops. She knows this. Despite the fact that it's actually rather rare that I do this. They all remember the lollipops and always forget about the time outs. So after I told her that today was, in fact, one of the worst days for her in terms of behavior, she simply replied with a very blunt, "Can I have a lollipop?" I really do find it amazing that I do one or two "special things" (like going outside or candy) for the kids and for some reason they feel entitled to it. They really don't seem to get the point. Looks like that's another point I'll have make a little clearer.

Young Men's Club - 4/1/08

The biggest news about today didn't involve any of the boys in my club today. It involved little Miss Britney and the incident from yesterday. I approached her to find out if she had her written notice signed. She told me that her father told her that she had to apologize to me. Which she did. (Ha! Ha!) But it gets better. After the clubs ended, her mother came up to me and, not only made her apologize again, she apologized on behalf of her daughter, and told me that Britney would be giving me a written apology as well. Now that's what I call parenting. I loved it. As far as the Young Men's Club went, it was fine for the most part. Only about 7 or 8 kids showed up today. So it was fairly mellow as a result. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all wine and roses. In fact, the usual suspects continued to push the limits and I continued to punish them. I added a new section to the drumming piece that the boys seemed to pick up pretty quickly. I've also started teaching them Romeo's speech. The, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks," one. Thankfully, we've got plenty of time. That one's going to take a while. But they do seem pretty open to learning it. Lastly, because the club was held in the gym, I was able to let the boys just run around and play tag for the last 10 or 15 minutes. I know this analogy may sound disturbing but they're pretty much like pets. You've got to give them a little time to run around a little bit in order to keep them in line. The big difference is that I don't get to use leashes.

Drama Club - 3/31/08

It feels like I'm re-inventing the wheel every day that I teach Drama Club. I don't seem to retain the games and activities that they like. And even if I did, they would gripe about how they played that one before. In many ways, this club stresses me out more than the boys because when I lose them, I really lose them. I practically get a mutiny on my hands. That being said, today actually wasn't that bad. The real issue was this one girl. Britney. The thing about her is that I've been letting her slide for a long time. She's one of those types that pushes the boundaries and then backs off and acts all cute and like she's just joking. But today, she went a little too far. It started with her loud groan over the fact that I made them rehearse their scene again. Then, during the scene, she was repeatedly talking while others were speaking. I kept admonishing her and she really didn't seem to care. So I escalated it and told her that I was going to send a written notice home with her if she didn't settle down. She loudly avowed that she didn't care. And that was the end of that. I sat her down for the rest of the club. No reindeer games for her. I also sent the written notice home with her as well. We'll see if it makes a difference in her behavior. Other than that, I think the club is going fine. They're learning their scene rather quickly. I think we'll be able to move on to additional scenes by next week. And if I'm really lucky, maybe one or two of them will actually want to do some acting.

Young Men's Club - 3/28/08

I was simply exhausted today. I had to wake up at 5:45am and go to work at my other job by 6:30am. Yikes! I was done there by 11:30 so I headed home, took a power nap for about an hour, and then headed up to teach. This was the final day of a very long week. So needless to say, I was quite drained by the time I got to the school. On top of that, Fridays are the longer days because the kids get out of school earlier. On the plus side, several of the kids don't come on Fridays. Either there in another club or their parents make plans with them. So today I had about 10 kids. The other issue with Friday is that I don't get to use the gym. I have to take the boys to a small area just outside of the auditorium. So they can't do any type of games where they can run around. So today's club was pretty much just about the drumming. This allowed me to just sit and gather myself. Unfortunately, the last thing the boys wanted to do was sit still. So there was a bit of battling on this day. Nasir, Christian, and Anthony just could not keep it together. I had to repeatedly put them in time out and take their drumsticks. More so than usual. But I moved forward. I think my complete exhaustion allowed me to keep my temper in check today. After some drumming games, I had the boys come up with their own beats and then vote on them. The funny thing was that three of them came up with the same beat. It just so happened to be the same beat that the girls used in their Step routine during the Black History Show. (I guess we all can't be creative types. Some just flat out steal.) The biggest surprise was Fernando. The thing about Fernando is that he completely irks me. He's constantly distracted, can't sit still, and goes into sulky moods for practically no reason. Yet, when he applies himself, he's amazing at whatever task he's doing. It turned out that he came up with a great drumbeat. I had him teach it to the other kids and I'll try to incorporate it in the Spring show. It is a little tricky and some of the kids had problems with it. But I'll stick with it. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick with it for too long because I started to have a mutiny on my hands. All the boys were having meltdowns. So I ended the drumming and had them play a little game where they could just hit a little beanbag around for about 10 minutes. Which they loved. I'm actually surprised that they lasted as long as they did. Lastly, I found out a little info about Fernando. Turns out his birthday is 3 days before mine! Which may explain why he annoys the hell out of me. We have the same sign. You know who else I share signs with? Nasir, and Anthony. Jourdan (who wasn't there today) is on the cusp of my sign. Can you say poetic justice? Although I damn sure wasn't this bad when I was a kid.

Young Men's Club - 3/27/08

I'm starting to think that I might actually be good at this job. Don't get me wrong, mistakes were made today. But overall, the guys in the club are progressing very nicely in many areas. For starters, I was working my other job today so when I got to the school I was pretty darn pooped. However, the general mood of the kids seemed to be pretty mellow. Of course the usual suspects needed to be spoken to but not that often. I have a system where the kids who are listening and ready to go are allowed to line up first. Which also means that they have first pick of the drumming buckets as well as being the first ones to go for bathroom breaks. I've been giving a silent signal to indicate that I'm about to make my choices. Today, I decided to make an announcement. I wish I had thought of this before because everyone gets it together so much easier. The boys also started with a 10 minute time out because they didn't know how to act at the end of the last club. The better behaved kids were released early and played Red Light, Green Light. Unfortunately, there was an accident. Kids don't realize that when you run really fast into a wall, it's going to hurt. Although I think the sliding into the wall was caused by two kids' feet get tangled up. Anyway, no one was seriously hurt and I allowed the game to continue after a brief lecture on physics, the human body, and how a wall will always win. Later we moved on to the drumming portion. Nasir really seems to have taken to his role of Drum Major. I told him that this would be his job in the show and that he had to take it seriously. He seemed excited about the prospect. So now, when he starts to act out of line, I can threaten to take it away from him. Yes, I am an evil man. But it's very effective. If you find out what the kids like and what they don't like, then control whether they get one or the other, it makes life a little bit easier. I also found a new catch phrase. I ask them, "Do you want to play the game or do you want to sit down?" They say, "Play the game." Then I say, "Don't tell me. Show Me." Meaning show me by demonstrating good behavior. It's very clever.

Young Men's Club - 3/25/08

Today was a bit weird. For one thing, I went to an audition today. Without going to the details, I had to get up at 7:30am, wait around for about 3 hours, and hope that I would get seen. The good news was, I did get seen. The bad news was, I had no time to prepare any kind of lesson plan for today. So my mood was weird. I was feeling good about my accomplishment in the field that I want to be pursuing while being required to go into work afterwards. Not exciting. We were in the gym today so I just let them run around. When in doubt, let them play Duck, Duck, Goose! They killed a good 30 minutes with that. Then I attempted a new game. I had them play imaginary baseball in slow motion. Let's just say that game fell flat on its face. Although, to give the boys some credit, it wasn't for a lack of trying. So I gave up on that for after 10 minutes and moved on to the drumming portion. They maintained the beats that they had made up from last week. Which is funny because I still don't remember them. I also think I may have found a niche for Nasir. He just doesn't seem to be into the drumming. But he does like to dance and he loves attention. So I think I'm going to make him a sort of Drum Major. I gave him the task of the opening count to start the beat and the signal to end the piece. He actually seemed to take to it pretty well. I may be on to something here. Unfortunately, the club did not end well. The sister of one of the students came a little early to sign him out. I had to take a little time to find the sign out sheet and then let her sign it. The boys decided to take the fact that my back was turned for 45 seconds as permission to act like complete jackasses. A, "fight," broke out between two of the kids. No punches or anything, just one kid who was very upset chasing another kid. So I had to bring the hammer down on that. In the end, there was a 10 minute time out issued which will be enforced at the beginning of Thursday's club. When will they learn?

Drama Club - 3/24/08

I started today with a completely different look. I decided to wear my glasses and I was also rockin' my new kicks. And with the kids, any change is always big news. So I had to endure all of them pointing out how they didn't know that I wore glasses. But there were no 4 eyes comments. However, Kayla did take a little dig at me. I have these other sneakers that are bright yellow and green Adidas. They are inspired by the flag of Brazil and are incredibly cool. In fact, way too cool for a 9-year old to understand. Kayla has stated on several occasions that she did not like these shoes. Today, when I rolled in with the new kicks, she said, "It's good to see you wearing shoes from 2008." Can you believe that? A 9-year old kid crackin' wise. I was very close to firing back my reply but I thought about it. Then I said to her, "You know what. I'm not going to say anything back to that. I could say something but I'm not." She said, "What would you say?" As if to challenge me. I stuck to my guns and said, "I'm the adult and you are the child and I'm not going to get into it with you." And that was the end of that. But between you and me, she's got these big, beaver teeth and she has no business talking about anybody. As an adult, I don't think it would have been right to mention that to a child. As far as the club went, it was actually pretty good. Basically, the kids like playing the games and they hate doing the work. We played some good old-fashioned Simon Says and then moved on to the Romeo and Juliet opening speeching. Simon Says went very well. The Shakespeare stuff was a little like pulling teeth. But they did retain a lot of their parts from last week and we did manage to move forward with a little more of it. Lastly, some of the kids brought back their signed verifications that they recited the Hamlet speech for a teacher. Thus, I've successfully pimped the kids out to promote what a good job I'm doing.

No Clubs Today - 3/21/08

Good Friday?! I'll say. It's always a good Friday if there are no clubs.

Young Men's Club - 3/20/08

Today was actually rather uneventful. And I like uneventful. Especially with the Young Men's Club. Don't get me wrong. The usual suspects continued to be pains in my butt. However, I can say that a couple of them have calmed down and gotten a little bit better. Christian is one of them that has actually gotten better. I've realized that he just likes to laugh at everything. That's just his defense mechanism. So I let a little more of it go. Also, he's started to realize that the things that annoy me aren't worth doing anymore. Like dancing in the cafeteria during snack time. He's starting to figure out that if he stops doing them, he gets to participate in the fun stuff. Jourdan's still consistent. He continues to be annoying but then he understands that there's a point where he has to back off. Then he starts up again. He loves to test the limits. Nasir, unfortunately, doesn't seem to learn any lessons. I started the club with relay races. They thought it was fun. I thought it was a great way to tire them out so that we could get some stuff done. I had them run suicides. That's when you start at one end of the basketball court and then run to the foul line and then run back. Then you run to the half-court line and then run back, then to the other foul line and back and finally the other end line and back. After about 20 or 30 minutes of this, they were a little calmer. Nasir, sat out for the entire race. I then let him participate in the drumming portion and he proceeded to clown around again. He simply can't stop. It's an addiction. So I pulled him out again. Then I put him back in again. It got a little better. Who knows. He's in the 3rd grade now so maybe he'll figure out that there will always be consequences by the time he hits 5th grade. But we are moving forward slowly but surely. I want to have about 3 drumming pieces ready by the end of the year and I want them to be composed by the students. It should be very cool.

Drama Club - 3/19/08

Today was actually a pretty good day. I learned from my mistakes in the previous club. Rather than trying to regulate the behavior of the more energetic girls, I chose a different approach. It's something that I'm surprised that I didn't do sooner. We have a written notice system in our program. If a student gets 3 written notices, they are out of the club. Which is pretty much a bluff. A child would have to be borderline dangerous in order to get kicked out of a club. But the concept of a written letter going home adds that extra element of accountability. So before the club started, I wrote letters of notice for each of my 3 main offenders. But I didn't put the date on them. I pulled each one of the aside and I had them read the letter. I told them that they had a choice. They could either behave and participate and possibly win prizes or they could continue to be disruptive and take that letter home with them at the end of the day. Jasmin was first. She's also what I consider the ring leader of the group. She folded immediately. Next was Cheyenne. She's also a ring leader but she has gotten significantly bolder since Jasmin has returned to Drama Club. After she read the letter, she immediately began to cry, pout, stomp her feet, and plead. I calmed her down and told her that she had a choice. She begrudgingly agreed to behave. Last was Britney. She's more of a follower, but she has this incredible attitude about her. She rolled her eyes, let out an audible sigh, and said, "Fine." Normally, this complete lack of respect for my authority would have warranted a complete forfeiture of any second chance and a letter would have gone home. But I was confident that if I could get the two ring leaders in line, the her behavior would follow suit. As a result, today's club actually went very smoothly. It still took them a while to settle down. (It always has and it always will) But I was able to get them all to work on very brief commercials in teams of 2 and 3. And of course, guess which team gave the best performance. Cheyenne and Jasmin. They actually added some extra lines to make it more believable I guess. I was very impressed. However, they didn't win the contest because I had to take off a point for their behavior during the performance of another team. The lost by a point. The winning team was given Blow-Pops and everyone was given an extra snack.

Drama Club - 3/17/08

Once again I've learned that boys and girls are incredibly different. I tried the same disciplinary approach with some of the girls that I did with the boys. The results were quite different. I exclude the girls who are repeatedly disruptive. One in particular is Jasmin. The problem with isolating Jasmin is that she enjoys sitting out of the activities. In fact, that seems to be true with all of the girls. With the boys, the idea of being excluding is more of a punishment. With the girls, it's a relief. I guess it's back to the drawing board. I'm also starting to learn the personalities of my new students. Angelina is making an impression on me and not in a good way. I told the class that, because of their behavior, they would not be rewarded with lollipops. I think that's fair. If you behave badly you shouldn't be rewarded. Well, little miss Angelina, decided to ask me for a lollipop after I made this announcement. I, of course, said no. She then proceeded to demand a reward by staring at me and only saying the word, "lollipop," with a rather mean expression. I, of course, retaliated with complete indifference at her efforts. The Jedi Mind Trick only works with those who are weak-minded. Someone should tell her that. Despite a lot of kicking and screaming, I was able to assign the first four lines in the opening speech of, "Romeo and Juliet," and there was a lot of resistance on that one. But we are moving forward. I'm having them do scenes from Romeo and Juliet and it's good that we are starting the process early because it's going to take a long time.

Young Men's Club - 3/14/08

I can't say that I didn't lose my temper today. That would be a lie. But I can say that I managed my feelings very well. Much better than I have been in the past couple of clubs. I kept things in perspective just as I had promised myself. I kept in mind the fact that I was making progress today. Even if it was a little at a time. And, as always, I never failed to bring the hammer down when they tried to test me. The club started with a 10 minute time out. During the last club, all of the boys decided that when the club ended, they could act silly and stop listening to me. When will they realize that they have to come back? When will they realize that I will always bring the hammer down? That they are never out of my mighty reach? Anyway, after the time out we played a little story telling game and as always, Nasir was being a bit of a trouble maker. And worse yet, he was attracting a bit of a following. So I had to sit him out for a majority of the club. This other kid, Leon, whose normally a pretty good kid, was starting to get caught up in Nasir's antics. So, I sat him out as well. Usually, when he gets one severe punishment he straightens up. One time I sent a letter home to his parents and he became a model student for months. I also decided to try a new tactic with Nasir. I simply told him that it was clear that the Young Men's Club wasn't the right choice for him and that I would be speaking to his mother about possibly finding another after school activity that he would enjoy more. He proceeded to beg and plead and swear up and down that he did like the Young Men's Club. But I stuck to my guns on that one. (More later) We continued to work on new drum beats for the show. I had the kids come up with and teach the other kids new beats. Some of them went way over the top and were playing these elaborate opuses. Which is admirable, but not really helpful in the process. I didn't want to have an hour long session with one kid trying to teach everyone else some drum piece he was making up on the spot. So unfortunately, I had to disqualify those from the competition. Everyone voted on the ones who came up with simpler beats. Either way, it's a process and I think we'll come up with something really good. Nasir continued to be a nuisance and disruptive and drawing attention from me. So I brought down the ultimate hammer. I announced that anyone who talked to Nasir or about what Nasir was saying or doing would be joining him in time out for the remainder of the class. Anthony attempted to test me on that. Anthony sat with Nasir for the remainder of the club. In general, I've accepted that I can't be engaging to every single student all the time. Some kids just aren't going to be into what I have to say. And I'm actually okay with that. I will simply pour my energy into the kids that want to listen and separate and tune out the other kids from the process. Of course, my door is always open and they can join. But I will not continue to make classes about keeping them in line. And just to sum up, I told Nasir's mother about his behavior and how I thought that maybe he would prefer a different after school activity. She asked me why. I said because he never pays attention to anything that I'm trying to do in the club. She asked me if this was recent. I said that it was an ongoing problem. She was not happy. And thus I layeth the Smackdown.

No Clubs Today

While I didn't have to deal with any kids today, I did have to go to a staff training on Mandated Reporting. That means that I had to learn the circumstances and procedures under which I would have to report child abuse or neglect. The meeting was informative as well as disturbing. At one point, there were slides showing children who had signs of abuse. Very hard to watch. At the same time, it also helped me to put things into perspective. While the kids in my club can be a real pain in the ass, the situation could be a lot worse. For one thing, the principal, teachers, and staff in the school are incredibly supportive of the students. Every adult there is committed to their education. And from what I've heard from a lot of the other teaching artists, that is not a common philosophy in all schools. Some schools are just downright horrendous. Also, the parents, in general, seem supportive of the school's efforts. I mean I've definitely met some parents who are doozies. Some seem rather ineffectual. Some have had somewhat questionable parenting styles. But I can honestly say that I haven't seen any evidence of abusive or neglectful situations. And again, not every teaching artist has that luxury. Finally, it's good to know that I don't really have to deal with deeply troubled children. Sure, they have problems with their attention span. And all of them, at some point, try to test my authority. But overall, I haven't had to deal with anything that I couldn't handle. Which, again, is a bit of a luxury. So for tomorrow's club I will try to remember that the situation could be a lot worse. I will remember that I cannot control every single moment of the time I'm there. Lastly, I will remember that while progress sometimes comes in leaps and bounds, most of the time it comes in teeny tiny little steps. And as long as we're not going backwards, it's a good day.

Drama Club - 3/12/08

I finally realized today why, in some ways, the boys are actually easier to deal with than the girls. Boys like to get into a lot of conflicts. And the conflicts are the major reasons why the boys get distracted. "He hit me, tell him to leave me alone," type of stuff. The advantage with the boys is that once I neutralize the conflict, I can move on. Well, briefly anyway. Unfortunately, there are a lot of conflicts so I waste a lot of time neutralizing. Now the girls have their fair share of conflicts, but that's not the main issue. The biggest obstacle that I deal with for the girls is that they feel that anything that they are doing is more interesting than anything that I plan. And that is really freakin' annoying. They are constantly having their own little chats and playing their own little games. So I'm actually in competition for their attention. With them. And today, I just wasn't feeling up to that. For one thing, there were additional students brought into the club. Which took it up to 16. Which is a pretty high number considering that I was used to 6 or 7. Some of the new girls are just the class clown types who are just grabbing the spotlight and making it about them. And with the bigger number of kids, there's a bigger number of eyes to pay attention to them. Plus, the club is a combination of boys and girls. Mostly girls and about 4 boys. So I have to spend time negotiating that tension. Anyway, the girls just weren't into anything I had to say. At one point, one of them lost an earring and every single kid decided that they wanted to help look for it. I tried to settle the kids down by doing a relaxation exercise. I had them just lie down while I described a serene scene of lying on the beach. That actually worked for about 15 minutes. But then they just went right back to acting silly. Dancing around, spinning in circles, whatever. Quite frankly, I just gave up. I let them do whatever the hell they wanted to do. I got tired of yelling at them. I got tired of putting them in time outs. I was just tired of whole damn thing. So as long as they didn't kill each other, I was fine with it. But since I am still the master of punishments, I did let them all know that they forfeited their lollipops based on their behavior. I ended the club by grabbing a few of the kids at a time to start auditioning them for the end of the year show. Yes, after all of the stress of the Black History show, I can now start stressing about the End of the Year show. When it was time for the club to end, I simply told them to gather their things. And those were pretty much the last words I said to any of them. I honestly couldn't even look at them at that point. They're just wearing me down. Tomorrow's a half day so no after school. I really like the sound of that right now.

Young Men's Club - 3/11/08

I've been working with kids for over a year now and I realize that what I am about to say is not, "politically correct." Those kids are assholes. Seriously. They are just assholes. They don't seem to care about anything other than shitting all over anything positive that could happen in the club. Today I was thinking, "They did a great job on Friday. I can relax a little. We can just play some games and have fun today." But for some reason, these kids just couldn't make that work. They had to fuck it up. I took them to the gym today. My plan was to let them run out all of the energy of the day with some relay races. But at first, we had to do a little bit of discussion. It's just part of the job. And yet, it took them about 20 minutes for them to get quiet enough for us to have a 5 minute conversation. Finally, they picked their teams. It took another 10 minutes for them to settle down long enough so that I could explain the rules of the race. I constantly kept asking them if they would prefer to settle down and hear the rules and then run the race or play around and be disruptive. They said they wanted to stop playing around but then would create more of a commotion by screaming at each other to shut up. Then there's this one kid, Jeremiah. Oh, my goodness. If you point out anything that he does wrong, he goes into a crying fit. As they're running the race, I told him that he had to touch the line with his hand. That's it. And because of that, he chose to pout, walk into a corner, and cry. Real tears. At this point I've just given up. I don't even care anymore as far as that goes. If a kid wants to cry for absolutely no reason, I'm going to let them go into their corner and cry. When their done, they can come back. Or not. I've got better things to do. Finally, I attempted to give them free drumming time to come up with their own beats. There will be show at the end of the year and I would like it if they came up with their own drumming piece for it. Most of them just ran around and banged their sticks against anything. Newsflash: If you bang a drumstick really hard against a concrete wall, it's going to break. (The drumstick not the wall) They really enjoy pissing me off.

Young Men's - 3/7/08

This was the day of the infamous Black History Show. I had been stressing about it for weeks and weeks and it finally arrived. And I must say that the kids did very well. I was proud of each and every one of them. There were a total of three shows over the course of a very long day. Two in the morning and then one at 6pm. The first one was pretty good. It was clear that the kids were a little nervous. They were still chatty backstage but thankfully it wasn't to the point that it was incredibly disruptive. Also, the kids in the audience were also pretty loud. It seemed funny to me when the nerves did actually hit the kids. During class, they've always put out a bit of an attitude. They didn't seem to take things seriously and would say just about anything in any kind of way. But once they got in front of the audience, all of that went away. I was in the wings of the stage and I could see and hear how quiet and timid all of the deliveries were. But they did a great job. The Drama Club followed the Young Men's Club and it was pretty much the same type of thing. A lot of attitude before, timid when they got up there. But they did the chanting really well and we had kids from all the clubs join in. The final drumming piece also went extremely well. The second show of the morning went better. It was a lot smoother and there was a little more confidence. Also, one of the other teachers decided to put the microphone in front of the kids to give them more volume. In their defense, it's a lot more difficult to speak loudly and clearly in a filled room rather than an empty room. Again, the second show went very well. There was one small snag. During the second drumming piece, one of the kids dropped his drumsticks. Then he looked over at me with this incredibly helpless look. All I could do was try to signal to him to just go and pick up the stick. The kid next to him helped him out and gave it back to him. He managed to get back into the groove. There were a couple of giggles in the audience but it wasn't that big of a deal. Afterwards, I told if he ever drops his sticks again that he should just pick them up because if the audience sees you drop them, they might as well see you pick them up. I also told him that professional drummers have a supply of sticks next to their drumset in case something like that happens. He seemed pretty unscarred by the situation. I had to run an after school club before the show which made the day even longer. I pretty much just let the kids run around outside. I just didn't have the energy to put together a lesson plan. Here is the really funny part. Before the show, there was about another hour to kill. All the kids from all the clubs were in the cafeteria. After such a long day, it was impossible to keep them in their seats so I allowed them to do what they always love to do: dance. However, I had to insist that the boys stay separated from the girls. It just causes way to many problems when they mingle. So I made an invisible line that they could not cross. Somehow, a "dance-off" occured between the two genders. I felt like I was on the set of a Janet Jackson video. The last show also went very well. Probably the best of all three. The only problem was that a couple of the kids couldn't stay for the evening show so I had to do a little maneuvering. Basically, just cutting the lines of the people who weren't there. It all worked out in the end and there was pizza and snacks after the show. You know something's gone well when there a reward of food at the end.

Young Men's Club - 3/6/08

I just don't know about these boys. I really don't. It seems like their sole reason for existence is to make me as angry as they possibly can. I could literally feel my head about to explode. Unfortunately, the sweet and tender moment that I shared with my Drama Club yesterday did not translate into today's Young Men's Club. They did not feel the sense of urgency for the show which is tomorrow. They didn't step up their focus level. And if anything, they actually slipped in their skill level with the drumming piece. Christian simply is incapable of not laughing at everything. I mean everything. My God, what the hell is so goddamn funny? All the time? And then he looks at me with this smile as if he's getting away with something. Perhaps that, "cute kid smile," works at home. For me, quite frankly, it makes me want to kick him in the head. (Just being honest. Wouldn't really do it) On top of that, there was the return of a couple of those special students. This week, neither Jourdan or Fernando had shown up to club. I thought that maybe they wouldn't be returning ever again. Which would have just broken my heart. But of course, they showed up on a day when I'm at my utmost stress level. The good news was that I could just flat out ignore them. There was just too much going on. So they had to sit in the audience and just watch. I don't know if they sat quietly or not. (Something tells me that they didn't) I just wanted to get through the show. We were able to run the show about 3 or 4 times. The hardest part is just keeping those kids quiet while their back stage. It's damn near impossible. I threaten, reward, admonish, separate, and nothing seems to be working. In the theatre world, they say that if you have a really bad final dress rehearsal then you are going to have a great opening. If that's true, tomorrow's shows are going to be brilliant. Did I mention that I can't wait until these damn shows are over?

Drama Club - 3/5/08

The bad news was that one of my students in the show had gotten sick during the school day and had to be sent home early. And today was the last day that I would have had all of the students in the Drama Club. So I had to have final rehearsal with 5 out of 6. The other bad news was that since the other after school programs ended, there was this huge influx of returning students to Drama Club. And when I say huge, I mean about 5 or 6. The point is that I couldn't really devote any time to keeping them engaged. Also, the K through 2nd Dance Club needed the stage to rehearse their portion of the show. So we had to share. During this time, I had a bit of a mutiny on my hands. All of a sudden, all of the girls just had to go to the bathroom at the same time. As if it were some kind of life and death situation. Now I'm not a cruel man and I don't think it's unfair to ask that they hold it together for 10 minutes or so. Especially since they were clearly exaggerating. I know this because once we did make the trip to the bathroom, it didn't seem nearly as urgent. But after the "crisis" had been handled, I made a deal with the girls that we would run the scene 3 times and if they were good then we would play games for the rest of the time. If not, we would run it 2 more times. The first one was okay. Actually it was less than okay. Which is understandable. There was a little bit of rust that had to be shaken off. Only 2 of them were there for the big rehearsal yesterday, and 2 more had not been there since last week. Now in the scene, there's a portion where Cheyenne (yes Cheyenne) is leading a chant. I decided that I would allow the other clubs to join in the chant from backstage. It really adds a strong energy to the scene. So during the run, the new/returning students joined in the chanting part of the show. I think that really helped energize Cheyenne and got her more focused. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the club I reminded everyone that the show was this Friday. They all reacted as if this was the first time they were hearing it. So that might have helped them to step it up. The second time that they ran it, it still wasn't particularly good. That's because they still weren't quite focusing. Cheyenne needed to pick up her cues and keep the energy going with the chanting. Also, Jamir was having a lot of trouble remembering her lines. I was getting very worried. So right before the last run, I really really really tried to stress the importance of picking up the cues. After I had done all that I felt I could, I took a seat, closed my eyes, prayed, and listened. Cheyenne started with some great energy. The K through 2nd club was there and were chanting along. They got to the stage and I heard the cue line for Cheyenne. Miraculously, she said her line right on cue with very high energy. I mouthed to myself, "Thank You." (I found out later that they had all seen me do that) The scene continued and the focus and energy remained high. Then Jamir came to her line. Somehow I was 2 for 2 in the miracle department because she nailed it perfectly. I was honestly shocked. I clutched my chest in a Fred Sanford like fashion. (Elizabeth. I'm comin' to join ya Honey) When it was completed, I jumped to my feet and cheered. The girls came through and they did a remarkable job. I went back stage and told them how proud I was of them. Normally, I like to keep a certain distance between myself and the kids. In this world, you never know how someone may misinterpret any form of physical contact. But for this one time, I made an exception and we all had a very touching group hug. Is it just me or has this been a long week?

Young Men's Club - 3/4/08

For today's club I will say that I am very grateful that I cannot go to jail for my thoughts. And I will simply leave it at that. I did start today with a very positive attitude. Nasir, showed up a little early and I decided to pull him aside and work with him on his drumming. It's been clear to me that he's been lagging behind on his skill level as compared to everyone else. It was incredibly difficult to get him focused but I was finally able to get him to play the drumming piece relatively properly. Also, there was yet another rehearsal for the big show. Ah that damned show. Once again, it's so difficult to get those kids to focus when they're in a big group. I attempted to remind myself that they will calm down during the actual show but the more I let it go, the louder they became. I would also like to point out that in my day, if an adult told me to be quiet, I would be quiet. I would not have kept talking. The times have changed. Nasir, believe it or not, was the absolute worst. He kept talking and talking and acting sillier and sillier. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore so I pulled him from the show. And not just on a temporary, hollow-threat basis in order to try and get him to behave. He is out. Out, I say. I'm done with him. And to be honest, he's very close to being removed from the program entirely. The kids, in general, just could not get it together for the speech portion of the show. However, they were much more focused and disciplined for the drumming portion of the show. And that's when the lightbulb went off. I told the kids that if they wanted to participate in the drumming portion of the show, they had to behave for the rest of the show. I will giveth and taketh away the drumsticks based on how the act. We'll see how this tactic works on the next club day. I really can't wait for this show to be over.

Drama Club - 3/3/08

Drama Club is such a weird club. For one thing, it's a very small group so it's difficult to fill the time with activities. It simply takes a lot less time for 6 kids to go through a game than 12-15 kids. Secondly, I get the feeling that the girls just don't want to be there. I swear I think I could just let them talk about whatever it is that they want to talk about for the hour and they wouldn't care less. On the other hand, I don't think that their conversations would be as fun for them if there wasn't an authority figure trying to get them to stop. Today marked the arrival of a new student. A boy named Kyrin. He was very shy and soft-spoken to begin with. It turned out that he was merely adjusting to the new situation. After about 20 minutes, I couldn't get him to stop talking. Which is actually a good thing. He's uninhibited and willing to go with the flow. If I suggest a game, he's willing to play it. Today also marked the return of Storm. She's a girl that started out very shy but soon showed her true colors. It turns out that she's quite the little brat. I have to say things two and three times before she listens. Which is NOT how I grew up so it's all VERY shocking to me. However, she's not completely disruptive as some people are. Her method of defiance seems to be to withdraw. And that's fair. All are open to participate but if someone doesn't want to, they shouldn't disrupt it for everyone else. She was also disappointed because she couldn't be part of the Black History Show. I had to give her lines to someone else because of her inconsistent attendance. Oh, that damned Black History Show. Which got pushed back to Friday, by the way. AAARRRRGGGHHH, I say. I just want it over with at this point. I think I'll be a lot more relaxed about the rules and activities once I don't have this looming pressure of getting this show up and running. The funny thing is that, in general, children's shows are supposed to suck. The children are supposed to suck in it. But I think that the kids in both of my clubs can actually be really good. All they need to do is put in a little bit of an effort and just focus a little bit more. My hope is that they'll step up once they're in front of people. And if not, oh well, whatever they do is still going to be pretty good. I just want to make it a little bit better. I actually want it to be great.

Young Men's Club - 2/29/08

Today the boys learned that I do not bluff. If I say that I'm going to do something I do it. I told them yesterday that their behavior was unacceptable. I also told them that a 30 minute time out would be enforced at the beginning of today's club. Sure enough, at the the beginning of today's club I implemented the longest time out in the history of Young Men's Club. And you know what, I didn't feel the least bit bad about it. I constantly remind them that their behavior dictates what happens in the club. If they're good, we play games, have fun, and I give them prizes. If they're bad, we have time outs and lectures. It was their choice. After about 10 minutes I started sending kids to the bathroom break. (I'm tough but fair) At around the 15 minute mark, I allowed some of the better behaved children to come out of time out early. This is another one of my favorite tactics. I let the good kids have fun and let the poorly behaved kids watch. During that time, I would play some drum beats and then have them repeat it. At the 30 minute mark, all but two of the kids were released from time out. Those two were Jourdan and Nasir. Here's yet another thing about these two: They love to push me. They love to try and get away with things. And I always catch them. Not because I'm so good but because they can't control themselves. For some reason, these two love to dance. Which is fine but not at the beginning during snack time. Trust me, with all the other kids from all the other clubs running around, having the kids in my club dancing is not going to help matters. But these two always start dancing the SECOND by back is turned. I literally turn my back and then immediately turn around again in order to catch them. They get caught every time. And that's why I added an extra 10 minutes to their time out. After time outs and some warm up drumming, we ran the drumming part for the Black History show. Honestly, it's going to be really incredibly. They just have to take it seriously and commit to it. Then I allowed them 15 minutes of "free drumming." Which again, is just 2 kids playing drums and everyone else dancing. (See, I understand the love of dance and I will allow time for it) Unfortunately it ended on a bit of a downer. I got them all together to run the speech for the show. It took way too long for them to get it together. Especially since it's the same speech that they learned about 2 months ago. So I was not happy about the behavior and we spent the final 5 to 10 minutes in yet another time out with yet another lecture. I don't think I'm asking too much. I just want them to keep their hands to themselves and listen to me. I just don't think my demands are that outrageous. But at least two of the kids were extremely well behaved today and they were rewarded accordingly with Blow Pops. Nasir came up to me and said, "I don't get a Blow Pop do I?" I refrained from using any swear words.

Young Men's Club 2/28/08

Today I could have filled an ocean with all the "Smackdown" that I had to lay. They were just out of there minds. The Black History Show is next week. I will be so glad when that's done with. Today we did a full run through of the entire show with all of the clubs. That meant trying to wrangle in my group while the other group was being wrangled in. Which is extremely difficult to do. There's just too much wrangling. So the boys were back stage waiting for their entrance and they just couldn't keep quiet. So I had to keep reprimanding and reprimanding. Finally, I told them that as a result of their complete inability to follow the rules that after the run through, the remaining time of the club would be spent in a group time out. They thought I was bluffing. After the run through I took them all to the bathroom. They continued to act silly which in turn, fueled my ire. I told them all that it was good that they were being silly because I had something very special planned for them. I also told them to get it all out now. When we returned to the auditorium, I implemented the classic, "put your head down," routine. There was about 15 minutes left in the club at this point and that's how they spent it. Lying down and keeping quiet. Music to my ears. Oh there were a couple of jokers. And as a result, more time was added which will be enforced during tomorrow's club time. They're up to about 30 minutes now. However, they also know that if they behave, I will cut the time just as willingly as I will add to it. I then proceeded to give them an old fashioned lecture on how their behavior determines what happens to them. On the positive side, they did quite well with the drumming and pretty good with the speech. I also had a chance to work with some of the girls in my Drama Club and their scene is coming together. Cheyenne, of course, is still having trouble taking things seriously. Overall, I think it will be a good show. Hopefully the kids will get it together once they're in front of an actual audience. And if not, it's not like there's anything I can do about it. They'll either sink or swim. I'm pretty confident that they'll swim.

Drama Club 2/27/08

So the Black History show is next week and I knew that I had to get the Drama Club in gear so that they would be ready. My goal was to just run the scene over and over again until it was at least running smoothly from start to finish. I also knew that I had to make some hard choices. Several kids had been flaking on me over the past couple of weeks. So I made the announcement that only the kids that showed up today would be a part of the show. I think that really helped. It took a load off of my mind and it allowed the remaining girls to take ownership of the show. I also knew that I needed to resort to bribery to keep them motivated so before I went to work I bought some Blow-Pops. It started out fairly well. They ran the scene 3 times and each time it got a little bit better. There were fidgeting issues and missed cues but at least it was moving forward. Then, after the bathroom break, all hell broke loose. And I have absolutely no idea why. Cheyenne, my class clown, just decided to shut down on me. Which really sucked because she's the leader of the scene. I really couldn't just cut her out of it. So basically, I just decided to wait it out. She held the entire club hostage with her hissy fit for about 5 to 10 minutes. Which, in retrospect, doesn't seem like that long. But it felt like an eternity at the time. Finally they got back into their places. Then Jamir, whose a bit of an outcast, got distracted because some girl moved her script that she had carefully placed on her spot on the stage. And by got distracted I mean became accusatory and argumentative. I reprimanded her and told everyone to start again. She responded my crawling under the piano and crying. Now here's the thing, I've clearly been working with kids for too long because I have grown completely indifferent to the cries of a youngster. For them, crying is like breathing. So I simply told everyone to get into places, allowed her to, "let it out," for a minute or so, then told her to get into places. Thankfully she complied (although it was clearly under protest because she chose to crawl to her appropriate place) and forgot all about whatever it was that was bothering her. We were able to run the scene 3 more times and I decided to leave it at that. I think it's in fairly good shape and we've got 2 more rehearsals before the show. Despite the meltdowns, everyone was rewarded with Blow-Pops.

Young Men's Club - 2/26/08

Before today's club started, Nasir walked up to me with a big, two front teeth missing smile and said, "I'll bet you $5 that I'll be good today." Of course, I let him know that I don't bet children. I also let him know that if I DID bet children, he would lose that bet. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, he was running around the cafeteria and acting very silly and unruly. I walked up to him and told him that he owed me $5. (He knew I was kidding) Today also marked the return of Joseph. He had been missing for about a week or so and I thought that maybe he didn't want to be involved in the club anymore. It turned out he was in the hospital for asthma. I didn't get into the details, I just know that he's fine now and that his absence wasn't about me. Which is all that matters. In general, the kids had a lot of energy today. It took them a while to walk down to the auditiorium. I would simply wait until they settled down before I would allow them to walk any further. I just had to get all of that energy down. I managed to get them into the auditorium and we went right to work on rehearsing the show. It opens next Thursday. I was really trying to focus on tightening it up and making sure that everyone was working together. Joseph, despite the time off, was able to pick up the new drum beats rather quickly. Christian, despite being there since the beginning, was having trouble. His mind and his eyes would start to wander during the performance. At first, I was really upset by this. I thought maybe it was a sign of disrepect. But then I calmed down and realized that he just needed more attention and encouragement to get it right. And that the real reason he was tuning out was because he was lost. I mean, I don't want to sound cruel, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So the next few times through, I stood right in front of him and kept pointing to him when it was time to play. I also had to keep my energy really high in order to keep him engaged. The good news is that by the third time he really seemed to get it. So hopefully he will retain it for the next club. The boys did a really good job with the drumming and it was decided that they would close the show. Extra juices for everyone.

Drama Club - 2/25/08

Well, after a week off I was ready to tackle the rest of the school year with vim and vigor. OK that's just a flat out lie. I was not ready to go back to school. I was not ready to work. I wanted another week. At least. But I went on anyway and it wasn't too bad. The kids started out fine. Or maybe the week off had helped more than I thought. My spirits seemed pretty high. I spent the first 15 minutes of the club just catching up with the kids. Talking about what they did over the break. I was planning on about 5 minutes of this but they love to talk. So after that, I went right into trying to run the scene for the Black History Show which is happening in a little over a week. Once again, they just couldn't get it together. They just like to wander. And then, when they did the scene, there was very little focus. One of the students who I've made the, "leader," is Cheyenne. She is the ultimate class clown. She is not shy by any stretch of the imagination. And she loves to be silly. My plan was that if I gave her some responsibility then she would step up and use her energy for good instead of evil. Unfortunately, when it's time to work on the scene she completely tunes out. All of that wonderful energy is just drained right out of her. She can't stand still and on top of everything, she suffers from psycho-somatic headaches. I mean that is truly unbelievable. She gets bored of the work (which lasts for all of 20 minutes) and decides she has a debilitating headache. So I allowed her to sit down and we ran the scene without her. After we were done and it was time to play a little game, she was miraculously healed and ready to play. Needless to say, I told her that if she was too sick to work, she was definitely too sick to play. I spoke with her after class and tried to explain to her that I needed her to step up, to challenge herself, to focus, and to be a leader. I asked her if she wanted to be a part of it and she said yes. I told her that she wasn't acting like she wanted to be in the show and that I expected more from her on Wednesday. I guess we'll see how it goes. Despite her behavior, she too was given an extra juice like everyone else. But I made her wait it out a little bit. Just to prove a point.

Young Men's Club - 2/14/08

The boys were really testing my patience today. In their defense, because I they had done such a good job with the drumming in the last club, I had to add a new section to their routine in order to make it longer. And because the Winter recess starts in two days, we were pressed for time. So my patience was pretty short to begin with. I tried to get them together and get started on the the drum routine but they were taking a little while to calm down. Fernando, was especially difficult. After I reprimanded him, he proceeded to pout. At least he was quiet so that I could talk. Then, as I started to hand out the drumsticks, he refused to participate because he was too busy pouting. I decided then and there that I did not want to deal with Fernando's nonsense today. So I put him in time out for pretty much the rest of the club. He ended up being picked up and leaving early. Which was fine with me. Now, because the new section is a little tricky, it took quite a while for them to learn it. Justin, my incredibly well-behaved student, had trouble. He's simply not a natural at it. He was getting a little frustrated with his progress. The sad part is, he really wasn't bad. He was just getting mad at himself when he made a mistake. But I was able to work with him and just reassured him that he was doing fine. The usual suspects were actually doing fairly well for a while. But then they just got out of control. At one point, somebody passed gas. Which of course means game over at that age. So I let that one slide. But they kept interrupting and giggling at their own private jokes and carrying on so I finally had to sit them down for the remainder of the day. About 15 or 20 minutes. And it was not suprising that the remaining boys seemed to pick up the new drumming section a lot faster after that. After the club, I spoke with the key players one on one. Anthony is one who used to be very disruptive. He's gotten a lot better but he's still a bit of a bully. I told him that he was doing a lot of really good things but that he's got to cut out all of the bad stuff. I spoke to Nasir and Christian together. I flat out told asked them if they wanted to be a part of the show. They both said that they did. So then I told them that they had to act like they wanted to. I didn't have the energy to talk to Jourdan. One more day until the break.

Drama Club 2/13/08

I got caught in a torrential downpour before I went to work today. So I was not in the best of moods to start. I also came to a bit of a realization today. The Drama Club has been feeling a little draining lately. I've realized that, although I love acting, theatre, and drama, I don't think the kids really care. Certainly not on the level that I care. I guess the reason that it's taken me a while to come to this understanding is because it's a Drama Club. Hello. I figured that the kids were there because they were interested in Drama. But now, I think it's simply because they've got nothing else to do. And no choice. But now that I know, I'll make the most of it. So it was very difficult to run through the scene for the Black History Show because I was missing about four of my students. In fact, of those four, one of them, a girl by the name of Storm, has not been there for the past week. So I'm not sure if she's going to be a part of the show. In fact, I'm not really sure who is at this point. Because it's a small club, when kids flake on me it makes it very difficult to produce a quality show. It may end up being more of a staged reading. Since the turnout today was a little lower than usual, we ran the show twice (as best we could) and then played games. There is a game I use almost everyday where the kids each say the To Be or Not To Be speech one word at a time in succession. As they say each word, they pass a little beanbag when it's their turn. This time, as they said each word, I had them say it with a specific emotion. If they were to say the incorrect word, take too long, or drop the beanbag, they had to take a seat in the center of the circle until someone else violated a rule. In fact, I played the game with them and was guilty of dropping the beanbag myself. They got quite a kick out of watching me having to take a seat in the center. Quite a kick indeed. I also had kids work on a scene that I had my special kid, Jourdan, write. Yet another thing about Jourdan is this: I think is mother is a Jehovah's Witness (or somebody is) but anyway he is not supposed to participate in any shows. Even though he participated in the Christmas show. Go figure. So, to play it safe, I haven't put him in the Black History Show. But he still show's up to Drama Club so I have to have something for him to do while I work on the show. So I had him write a scene. It kept him busy long enough for me to work on the show without him being a complete and total disruption. Then I had the other students perform the first two lines from the scene that he had written. It seemed to go allright. They didn't love it. They didn't hate it. I finished with some good old-fashioned Simon Says. But there's always some kid who takes losing way too personally. At least there were no tears this time.